When Mr. and I planned a dinner out with my colleague SM and fiance CD, we were looking at a number of restaurants in Gastown. In the end, we decided on Wildebeest because its menu was quite intriguing.

Intriguing, how? There’s a lot of game meat on the menu. And we ordered a lot of them.

Food

I don’t think I’ve seen duck hearts on a menu before. These Popcorn Duck Hearts were addictive – they’re crispy outside, meaty inside. Slightly bigger than chicken hearts, and not gamey (to me). The batter was thin, and it wasn’t greasy. The yogurt sauce was like a dipping sauce, bringing freshness and creaminess to the dish. You really could keep popping them in your mouth like popcorn.

This Bison Carpaccio looks like a typical carpaccio, except with the use of bison instead of beef. The bison was lightly seared on the outside so it’s practically rare. Even though it’s leaner, it’s still tender, buttery. The sorghum “popcorn” added some crunch. The highlight of the dish was the sous vide egg yolk.

CC bought a Travelzoo voucher to a 6-course tasting menu at Bauhaus Restaurant and invited me to join her. Since its opening I’ve been wanting to try Bauhaus, and find out what German fine dining could be like, and now is my chance.

Food

The Chef’s Tasting Menu changes seasonally, and when we went, they just launched a new one.

Before we got into the six courses. We were first greeted with some Bread, served with whipped butter with sea salt or butter with paprika.

We also received an amuse bouche, which was a White Bean Veloute. It was light, with a hint of smokiness from the drizzle of paprika oil. There’s some horseradish foam at the top but I didn’t get the pungent peppery flavour of horseradish. It was just the right few spoonfuls of veloute to whet the appetite.

First course was Tuna, soy marinated Yellowfin tuna. It’s an Asian-inspired flavour profile. The fish was lightly seared on the outside; the flesh texture was nice and firm, and the marinate wasn’t too overpowering. The salt in soy was balanced by the sweet orange carrot meringue and slightly tart orange gel. The presentation of this plate was stunning, loved the colour, but there were a lot of components on the plate and I wasn’t too sure how to approach it.

Next, Cod. The little piece of cod was sous vide; because the cooking temperature was well-controlled, the meat texture turned out very nice. (more…)

This past weekend, we were invited to go to the Brunch Crawls as part of the Dine Out Vancouver festivities. Put on by Richard the Vancouver Foodster. The first of the brunch crawl series was in Gastown.

Gastown Brunch Crawl

In 4 hours, Mr.and I checked out 7 different spots in Gastown:

Prado Cafe

Zero Zero Pizzeria

The Capilano

The Birds & The Beets / Grain

Rodney’s Oyster House

Bao Down

Smallflower Cafe & Bakeshop

The crawl started with a cup of hand-crafted coffee at Prado Cafe. There were a few choices and we ordered an Americano and Flat White.

Almost right next door was Zero Zero Pizzeria. The portion was quite generous here. We had two options, including the pizzetta flatbread, but also a new topping combination that wasn’t even available on the regular menu yet!

A couple of streets over we got to the new Capilano Tea House. They will officially open their door on February 1, so we basically got a sneak preview.

We were invited to go on a tour to check out the various Donnelly Group properties and their Dine Out Vancouver menu. Executive Chef Alvin Pillay has recently returned to the company group, and he’s quite proud of the menus that he’s put together. Ten of the Donnelly Group properties are offering similar items. Specifically, there are 6 core items that can be found at all these locations, which we tried on this tour, along with their respective beverage pairing. Each Donnelly Group location also offers an additional entree option on their Dine Out menu.

Food

Our first stop was at The New Oxford, where we tried the two appetizers.

The Curried Parsnip Soup could definitely warm you up on a chilly winter day. The curry spices really came through; I could taste a lot of ginger. Soup was creamy, and the roasted apple offered some texture in contrast. Suggested wine pairing is the Volcanic Hills Pinot Gris. The apple note in the white wine was a great match with the soup.

The Winter Salad sounded and seemed simple, but there’s an interesting depth to it. The buttermilk sumac dressing brought tartness and spice, black sesame added some nutty flavours, and the Moroccan pita bread gave it some crunch. The 50th Parallel Riesling isn’t as sweet as a typical Riesling, which worked well with this light salad.

A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to the Tasting Plates Gastown Edition. Gastown is a neighbourhood that intrigues me but I never spend enough time exploring. The event offered me an opportunity to re-visit some restaurants while discovering some new ones.

Instead of duplicating my Twitter coverage through the evening of the event, I have taken a different approach with this recap post. I’ve used Storify to build my story using pictures from the event along with additional comment at each stop. Click on the image or link below to check it out. Find out what I liked and what I didn’t like, and what I wished to have done differently on this tour:

While we’re continuing our Dine Out Vancouver coverage this week, I’m pleased to let you know that some restaurants have decided to extend their menu offering for a few more days. Here are their end dates and menus:

This year’s Dine Out has been my recent favourite. Overall, I think the restaurants have raised the bar and put out a much more interesting and tastier menu, and the service quality has also seen improvement. We have 2 more reviews coming up this week so be sure to follow them!

I must confess, as soon as my body felt better and I got an OK from my home doctor (aka Mama Lam), I got out the door right away and went for my first Dine Out dinner this year. While I was sick I missed a few DOV dinners so I have to make up for it. First up, a girls’ date with CC and LW at Catch 122 on Hastings across from the Woodward Building.

Food

Because I can’t drink just yet, I ordered myself a mocktail, the Gastown Riot. It’s refreshing, with subtle flavours from raspberries and basil. I liked that it used actual raspberries puree, although it also means that you’d be chewing some raspberry seeds while drinking. For some reason it tasted gingery so I’m not sure if it’s mixed with a bit of LW’s ginger beer.

For appetizer, I chose the Cold Smoked Salmon and in my head I was picturing something similar to what I had at Mosaic. Not even close. In fact, it looked nothing like smoked salmon – it looked and tasted like seared salmon filet (it’s served warm). That being said, the salmon was well seasoned, nicely cooked to about medium so it’s moist and a little bit pink inside. It paired quite well with the dill sauce. (more…)